Satya goes to the big city to try his luck, gets lured into Mumbai’s underworld, and tries to keep his gangsta life on the down low from his girlfriend.
Satya does not get his chance. RGV argues that the system is to blame for creating goons. He makes his antihero an orphan, stripping him of a past, so there’s no argument for nature’s role in shaping a criminal. Even the only character trying to make an honest living (Satya’s girlfriend) becomes collateral damage to the violence.
There’s a gritty look to the film that reminds me of another gangster movie, “Nayagan” (1987). There’s also a different feel to the movie that I think I can attribute to the improvisatory dialogue (a fact I learned later).
Caged
RGV often frames Satya like a caged animal. The noir-style bars, from windows or shadows, box the character in, creating a sense for the viewer that this man is a trapped animal. The final showdown has Satya cornered, begging in front of a door to be let in – like a dog left out in the rain.
A Movie In Love with the Movies
While watching the movie, I recalled a Film Comment article years ago entitled “Bullets over Bombay.” The drive-by shooting of a movie director as a plot in the movie triggered my memory of that piece, as well as sections from Sukhetu Mehta’s “Maximum City.” The underworld has a hand in Bollywood. Travis Crawford’s piece in Film Comment traces the Bollywood gangster genre, which also mentions “Satya.” Mehta’s book peels that even further. At the time of the film’s release, did the film glorify gangsters? One can argue that “Satya” creates martyrs out of them when they’re portrayed as victims of the system.
The underworld in “Satya” has many links to the Bollywood industry. There’s a hit on a movie director. Satya’s love interest wants to be a playback singer. And there’s a sequence set in a movie theater that easily brings to mind Dillinger. (It also reminded me of my childhood as a movie-goer in the Philippines …)
Lost in Translation
One thing I find lacking in watching Bollywood movies in DVD is that the songs are seldom subtitled. So I lose the irony or comic relief that the song offers as a comment to the plot or characters in the movie. A love song I get – in any language. From what I’ve learned about the film, the characters speak Bambaiya lingo, which I fail to appreciate. It’s all Hindi to me.
The film’s opening sequence made me wish I were in Mumbai again. Just not among the gangsters.
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